Fiker Institute and Barjeel Art Foundation Launch Research Partnership on Arab Women Artists

Fiker Institute and Barjeel Art Foundation announced the launch of “Written Portraits: Arab
Women, Art, & History,” a research partnership that focuses on the lives and works of Arab
female artists, authored by Arab female researchers. Their collaborative initiative seeks to bridge
a number of knowledge gaps in the existing global discourse surrounding female artists from the
Arab World, and their social, political, and cultural contributions to their respective countries and
the wider region. Barjeel Art Foundation is dedicated to establishing a publicly accessible art
collection in the United Arab Emirates to foster the intellectual development of the art scene in
the Arab World. This initiative aligns with Fiker Institute’s interdisciplinary approach to
knowledge production as a think tank based in Dubai.

The research partnership takes the form of four research essays written by Arab female authors,
each focusing on an Arab female artist, her life, and her work, which have often been
underrepresented or undocumented altogether in regional art history. The four regional artists
explored are Munira Al Kazi, Helen Khal, Samia Osseiran Junblat, and Nadia Saikali,
documented by Aseel AlYaqoub, Lara Arafeh, Maie El-Hage, and Juliana Khalaf Salhab,
respectively. Each artist was a trailblazer in her own respect across varying contexts, as authors
quickly learned during personal conversations and interviews with their family, friends, mentors,
and acquaintances. AlYaqoub, in researching Al Kazi, astutely notes that these essays
“acknowledge the significance of personal memories and individual narratives, which transcend
institutional perspectives, in constructing an artist’s enduring legacy.” Through retracing their
lives and legacies, the essays aim to advance knowledge on the nature of regional art institutions
and artistic creation, with regard to mediums and themes, across different points in Arab history.

The essays were published by Fiker Institute and can be found here.

On February 4, a panel discussion with Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi, founder of Barjeel Art
Foundation and authors Aseel AlYaqoub, Lara Arafeh, and Maie El-Hage was hosted at Fiker
Institute’s Library at 5 pm. Panelists spoke about the significance of archival material on the lives and works of Arab female artists and art movements in the region more widely, alongside the challenges, opportunities, and realizations throughout the process of researching and writing about women who are otherwise understudied in contemporary scholarship.